The Dark Triad: Dragon’s Death will showcase a turn-based combat system, where the player can select his party members on each turn and perform movements, attacks, or many other feats against his enemies.

Turn-based combats are an essential element in TDT:DD. When a combat starts, the player will be able to choose the degree of strategy or action desired and also define, if he wishes, the speed, difficulty or other options to adjust the combat to his personal preferences.

Tactical elements during the combat

Besides normal attacks, one important element during the combat is what can be done during the current turn in order to improve the attack on the next turn (a kind of piling up effect). Analyzing the emerging gameplay of this element, we realized that it added interest to the combat dynamics. This ‘accumulating powe’r feature will enhance attack and defense on later turns, and thus will add an important tactical component. This won’t only influence the result of the current turn but also the new mecanichs and rules that will emerge along with it during the rest of the fight. For example, you can choose a skill boost for the next turn. This implies concentrating and therefore losing the current turn. So you lose this character’s outcome on the current turn but gain an extra bonus for the next one ... but everything has a price, and we will talk about it in another update (Chaos Factor)

Skills & Specializations

The importance of skills and spells in TDT:DD is crucial. We could say that we’ve created a system so focused on the skills, that each one of them has an essential role in the value of a class.Each skill have its own specializations, so you can create hundreds of combinations and be able to build very many different and interesting models of the same class to play with. For example, we have a Blue Mage that specializes in healing and summoning clones of himself, one of the strongest abilities in the game. He can also focus on damage over time (DOT), draining life from enemies. Or maybe he’ll can become an expert in crowd control (teleportation of friends and enemies in the battlefield, etc ...). All this is possible because each of these skills are associated with specializations. This interwoven links allow to create a great web of relationships within the same skill.

Our goal with combat

Our primary goal with turn-based combat is immersion and fun. We know there are players who prefer to stop for a moment and enjoy a good tactical component. We know there are other players who prefer to play more aggressive and fast, without halting to consider those tactical aspects. We’ve tried to find a balance and give players the best of both worlds without mixing both playstyles.

We want TDT:DD turn-based combat to make a difference gameplay and engagement-wise. The level of risk will be largely determined by the player himself and above all, by the great variety of encounters and enemies. We are working on a formula so there can be huge battles in which the player -through an appropriate mix of party-member skills and risk factor- can effect devastating attacks and wreak havok among the enemies.

In future updates I’ll talk about more aspects of the combat, IA, encounters with enemies, skills, spells and much more.

What do you think about combat in TDT:DD? Let us know!

____If you want to help us with the development of the game, you can preorder a copy of TDT:DD at The Dark Triad[the-dark-triad.com]

The problem with a demo is that you don't get the feeling of an almost full gameplay experience until the latest development stage. Alpha and beta versions we'll be exclusive for our backers, but we can't make public demo releases, this would divert our focus from our development workflow and could be detrimental to the game itself. Anyways you'll be able to watch a sneek-peek in the gameplay video that we will release the 20th March on Kickstarter =)